J.A.F. Team

Alright. It seems evident that many of the people on what I considered "my" side have gone...how to but this politely...

 

I can't. Straight into black and white insanity territory. I'm seeing reasonable, people who could not possibly be homophobic accused of it. This needs to stop. By Yig, there is such a thing as too far.

 

Canama, I essentially agree with you, and you pretty much accused me of siding with the KKK. I just don’t know how to respond to this. I’m sorry that we don’t see eye to eye, but please keep the discussion civil.

 

Thank you and goodnight.

 

You misread what I typed. I said that asking us to not treat homophobes like bigots is like asking us to not treat a member of the KKK as a bigot. I made no specific accusations towards you or anyone else.

 

That goes to B6, too - I made no specific accusations anywhere in that post.

 

 

 

Canama, if you truly believe that certain BZP members, like members of the Ku Klux Klan, harrass people, shout demeaning slurs at them in public, burn crosses in their front yards, murder them, and generally comport themselves in a manner that qualifies them as a terrorist organization, I'm going to have to ask for some evidence on that front. If you can provide none, then I will have to conclude that you are not being asked to make peace with the Klan. You're being asked to make peace with your fellow BZP members, and to handle your new duties in a calm, rational manner. If someone who makes an ignorant comment in coming to you to get a better understanding of something automatically triggers the "this person is equivalent to the KKK" response in your mind, then I have some serious concerns.

 

The KKK is still around, you know - they don't kill people anymore or do other terrorist stuff (mainly just rallies now), but they are still active as a hate group. I think it's a pretty apt comparison.

 

 

Well, you're asking us to make peace with the Klan.

This, right here, is the problem I'm trying to get at, Canama. You have to understand that, unless they are doing all of the things that make the Klan the Klan, equating people to it is roughly equivalent to calling then Nazis. Unless it is their open and firm stance that you should die for their beliefs, it is not a fair characterization.

 

Canama, I essentially agree with you, and you pretty much accused me of siding with the KKK. I just don’t know how to respond to this. I’m sorry that we don’t see eye to eye, but please keep the discussion civil.

 

Thank you and goodnight.

You misread what I typed. I said that asking us to not treat homophobes like bigots is like asking us to not treat a member of the KKK as a bigot. I made no specific accusations towards you or anyone else.

 

That goes to B6, too - I made no specific accusations anywhere in that post.

 

 

Canama, if you truly believe that certain BZP members, like members of the Ku Klux Klan, harrass people, shout demeaning slurs at them in public, burn crosses in their front yards, murder them, and generally comport themselves in a manner that qualifies them as a terrorist organization, I'm going to have to ask for some evidence on that front. If you can provide none, then I will have to conclude that you are not being asked to make peace with the Klan. You're being asked to make peace with your fellow BZP members, and to handle your new duties in a calm, rational manner. If someone who makes an ignorant comment in coming to you to get a better understanding of something automatically triggers the "this person is equivalent to the KKK" response in your mind, then I have some serious concerns.

The KKK is still around, you know - they don't kill people anymore or do other terrorist stuff (mainly just rallies now), but they are still active as a hate group. I think it's a pretty apt comparison.

 

And I said there's a big difference between an organized group dedicated to hate and people who happen to say misinformed, hurtful things. They do not deserve the same treatment and you should not be comparing them as the same thing. I already asked you to stop that, and if you continue to do so I will take administrative action.

 

(I realize not everyone here is a kid that's still learning how things work)

pretty much everyone in the whole argument is 14+, and thats just the lowest I'm willing to guess. They're not kids, they're at best teenagers.

 

That probably still qualifies as "kid." I'm a much better person now than I was when I was 14 (and I think that's true of, oh, probably everyone ever).

 

But still, I said immediately after that they should be ejected from the internet if they're really being about it. Just stick 'em in a cannon and light the fuse.

Canama, I'm guessing you haven't been down to certain parts of the South recently. The KKK's public face may just be rallies, but do not take that to mean that they don't still kill people, often in ways the description of which would violate certain of BZP's rules about graphic/disturbing content.

Here's an analogy that might help with the discussion:

 

A math teacher asks her student what five times five equals. The child tells her, "Twenty-four!" How should the teacher reply?

 

There are two primary ways. 1. "Actually, [insert name here], the answer is 'twenty-five'. But that was really close! You see, just think of it this way: there are five sets of five, so it goes five...ten...fifteen...twenty...twenty-five. And there you go!" 2. "Are you stupid? The answer is 'twenty-five'. Are you literally incapable of functioning at the level of your classmates? They have it figured out, but you can't even figure out a simple times table!"

 

See, education is informing someone about that which he/she does not know, or fixing any twisted or wrong ideas that they may have. Insulting someone, or being harsh, or anything similar, is not educating a person. I am all for educating those that are intolerant, discriminatory, and bigotry. But telling them they are less of a person than you because of their intolerance does not make them any more apt to actually learn something. The same goes for calling someone a bigot, or any similar terms. Even if it is a general, legitimate term that has a legitimate meaning, it is implying a negative idea about someone. Giving someone a negative label, no matter how true it is, does not make the person see the light on anything. Imagine someone calling you a bigot. It's not like it exactly makes people happy. And it's only feeding a fire that's already started.

 

The best way to stop intolerance on this site is to truly educate people. As many have said, a lot of people are saying things that they don't mean to offend anyone with. If you can just simply tell them what they said was offensive and tell them to be more careful in the future, without sending scary ten-paragraph-long confrontations, maybe they'll actually learn something useful. Just my two cents on this.

 

-Rez

A clarification on the matter of insults - while it is true that calling someone who is behaving in a bigoted manner a bigot is not a false statement, that does not meant that it cannot and is not likely to be taken as an insult, any more than calling someone who displays certain behaviour a lying, self-obsessed attention-seeker with the attention span of a goldfish would not be insulting from their point of view. Whether the accusation is true or not, calling someone a bigot is not going to produce a calm, rational response from them, while more diplomatic language - stating that they are wrong, why they are wrong, and how they are wrong - could lead to a peaceful resolution

 

 

There are some people within the LGBT+ circle who don't necessarily want to sit down and write up another wall of text going into that the person is in the wrong, why they are wrong and how they are wrong. Not everyone likes to try and take out their time to explain these things (again) to, usually, be ignored outright when approaching it in a completely calm and logical manner. Some people would rather say "don't post bigoted things in my blog" and I have a very, very hard time seeing the insult there. It's simply saying "don't post dehumanizing things about people" in a more concise manner, with a term that hasn't degraded into one people use to casually insult one another or demean one another. If someone were to take offense to that statement, then they should take it upon themselves to understand why -- it's their words, their responsibility. If they don't want to come to any sort of understanding, then they simply won't (and will complain how the term "bigot" is offending their sensibilities when it accurately described what they were posting).

 

Some people just don't want to deal with it, at all. And there's nothing wrong with that -- not everyone in the LGBT+ community has to educate everybody every time they act hurtful on an issue. Not everyone has the patience to, or the stamina, and some might be in fragile situations mentally (e.g: Depression, frustrated easily). But they can say that something posted was bigoted, they can request that type of thing to not be posted in their personal blog and, if it persists, they can (and would, I imagine) get staff involved so the problem's done.

 

Bigot/Sexist are two terms used to describe those actions and what they're doing. The terms aren't inherently insulting and, if someone does find them insulting, I honestly do feel that it would be a good thing -- they don't want to be seen as a bigot or as sexist: maybe they'll go out of their way to educate themselves more on the subject to understand how to avoid having their posts labeled as such in the future? Maybe they won't, but those who won't likely don't care enough and only want to victimize themselves to make them feel more justified after insulting a large minority of people. (Honestly, every time I've changed someone's mind on the issue, it was because they wanted to know more and have more information and I gladly presented it to them happily -- I really do like it when people try to empathize and understand and learn. I've never changed the mind or stance of someone so stalwart in their beliefs that they still believe they are the paragon of all that is good, while belittling someone else).

 

They're about as insulting as saying "you're wrong." People don't like to be told that, but when it's true (or when it's applied) they really should look at what they posted and try to figure out why (which is, usually, easy to do). Or, at the very least, ask about it -- what did I say was bigoted? Why? Rather than adamantly sit there and say "nope; I can totally disagree with who you are and that's a valid opinion to have."

 

And saying that x, y or z is bigoted/sexist brings in examples of what people in the LGBT+/female community (among others) find offensive. It would, hopefully, keep others from saying those things, or barging into blog entries where they aren't wanted to start up a debate. Or barge into a topic and claim all LGBT+ things should be banned from the site and expect no blowback from such a statement (and then begin to use actual, real insults when called out on saying bigoted and hurtful things).

 

Can they be taken as insults? Yes. Does that make them so? No.

If it were a matter of posting a warning in a blog that bigoted views are not to be tolerated in it, that would be fine. I encourage that.

 

It's not.

 

Instead, we're dealing with comparisons of BZP members to terrorist organizations - no names were named, but it doesn't take a genius to think up a few examples of who Canama meant. We're dealing with people who, while they don't feel like writing up a wall of text explaining why someone is wrong, are perfectly happy crafting another wall telling them that they're evil. The actions are not being called bigoted, the people are being called bigots and treated to speeches that do plenty to anger but nothing to educate. I have already said why flatly calling someone a bigot insults them - and if you don't believe that term can be insulting, that's fine - you'll find much worse being said on the offsite blogs of members involved in these blog wars.

 

If you don't want to deal with trying to fix it, let the staff deal with it - or, hey, let those who volunteered to be part of a group focused on education and public outreach deal with it. They must have the patience to educate people, since they signed up for it.

I was purely talking about the one aspect of the conversation I was quoting (the "bigot/bigoted" being an insult or not) as someone brought that up earlier. I've seen those accused of posting bigoted, hurtful things act in a manner as if the term is victimizing them in some fashion and, simply, wished to address that particular point made. There are others far, far more eloquent than myself who I think would do a better job at touching on the rest of things (Princess mentioned wanting to post something earlier on in the entry).

 

But for me, that's all I wanted to touch on since it was brought up. (That and while I read the blog entry, I only read a few of the comments -- I'm constrained for time, so chose to talk about the one comment that irked me a bit).

Ah, thank you for the clarification. I do think that getting defensive about an accusation of bigotry, rather than trying to understand why the accusation is being made and seeing whether the person making it has a point is a counterproductive reaction. My hope with this is that we can figure out a way to bypass that reaction, that impulse to take offense, and get straight to the heart of the matter when dealing with those who have made offensive statements.

 

While bigot is not, by itself, an insult, I am of the opinion that anything that you know is going to be taken as an insult before you say it, and say anyway, is an insult. Experience has shown that things like "I have no problem with homosexuals, but think that homosexuality is a sin" fall into that category by this point as well - anyone who says it on here has to be either oblivious or trying to provoke a reaction. If we are to assume the latter, then the obvious path, I think, is to not react in the desired fashion.

Here's an analogy that might help with the discussion:

 

A math teacher asks her student what five times five equals. The child tells her, "Twenty-four!" How should the teacher reply?

 

There are two primary ways. 1. "Actually, [insert name here], the answer is 'twenty-five'. But that was really close! You see, just think of it this way: there are five sets of five, so it goes five...ten...fifteen...twenty...twenty-five. And there you go!" 2. "Are you stupid? The answer is 'twenty-five'. Are you literally incapable of functioning at the level of your classmates? They have it figured out, but you can't even figure out a simple times table!"

 

Those are not equivalent scenarios. A child making a simple mistake in mathematics cannot be considered equivalent to hatred, bigotry, and the denial of one's rights to live as an individual. In fact, it's both absurd and insulting.

It was an analogy for demonstrating the helpfulness of the responses, not for comparing the errors that led to them. Whether the person is bad at math or ignorant and deceived, shouting at them does not educate. Shouting is not public outreach.

Where is the shouting? Who is shouting? I was the only one to get legitimately angry and made an angry post, but I'm guessing in this case nobody read it short of Six and Tilius because they were the only ones to acknowledge it. Yes we're angry and yes we're upset, but for the most part we've been incredibly civil given what we've been going through and what we've read on this site.

It is possible that you missed Canama's posts on how not engaging in further blog wars is equivalent to making peace with and legitimizing the Ku Klux Klan, and his reference to xccj and others, such as myself and Alex, who are calling for peace as "oppressors."

It was an analogy for demonstrating the helpfulness of the responses, not for comparing the errors that led to them. Whether the person is bad at math or ignorant and deceived, shouting at them does not educate. Shouting is not public outreach.

 

But it was a poor one, as I detailed. The problems are not in the same neighborhood, and equating them is offensive and wrong. Don't.

The problems are not what is being equated here. Nobody is saying that getting a math problem wrong is the same thing as homophobia, and the only thing close to that being said is you saying that people are saying it.

 

And it is hardly only dyed-in-the-wool homophobes who get this treatment, either. I distinctly remember a blog entry in which someone stated their views as an egalitarian, and was treated as though they were part of the problem, told that supporting equality as a general thing somehow managed to be just another form of oppression.

I'm going to lock this entry. Not to stifle the conversation, but because I want to make an important blog leader type post, and don't want this entry to get locked by other staff permanently in the mean-time, and I won't have time to get to it until tomorrow. After I edit this comment, I will re-open this entry for comments. I guess consider this a one-day period to think things over and figure out how to get your point across more effectively.